A Model of Decorum and Tranquility
by peregrinepandora
Summary: The Slytherin Common Room, at Christmas. One-shot.


A Model of Decorum and Tranquility

~*~

There are seventy-four Slytherins this year.  Sixty-seven of us have remained here for the holidays.  It's mostly first years that leave, after a couple Christmases with their changed families, the majority lose heart.  And for some of us, we don't have a family to go to.  Our parents are in Azkaban.

Professor Snape has a Christmas tree put up here every winter.  The hard marble floors reflect the enchanted candles' light.  Makes the room look like it's glowing.  The moon shines in too through the windows, mirrored off the stark snow.  It almost feels like a home, and we like that.  

The tree is missing presents though.  Slytherins don't give gifts unless they are deserved. Professor Snape sees to it that first years find some little trinket with their name on it on Christmas day.  It's not that he's sentimental, none of us are.  We don't know why he does it, we just trust that he knows more than we do.  Maybe he remembers being eleven and away from home for the first time.  Maybe he remembers how your father changes in the ten months you're away.

Malfoy, naturally accompanied by Crabbe and Goyle, is situated in a very familiar spot—right in front of the fire—talking up some new plot with a group of older Slytherins.  We all know the War is coming.  We, at least the sixth and seventh years, know there's a grave choice in our futures.  Dumbledore gave some cock-and-bull speech when that Hufflepuff was killed almost two years ago.  Something about choosing between what is right and what is easy.

We know better than that.  Neither way is right.  Neither is easy.  And no matter what most think of us, very few of us have chosen yet.

We're not heartless.  Loyal to the last, if loyalty is justified.  Intelligent and hardworking, courageous.  We have the chosen characteristics of every other house.  We're just not stupid, is all, and we don't let our hearts get in the way of what is advantageous to us.

Not like those ninny Gryffindors.  

Tomorrow, the whole lot of us will walk down for breakfast.  Potter and his fan club, who have stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas as well, will saunter down after we've begun eating and strut about like the attention-seeking simpletons they are.  They'll all be wearing their Weasley sweaters, _gifts of course, and they will have already exchanged their knick-knacks among themselves.  They will talk loudly and laugh loudly in their little group while the sixty-seven of us eat quietly, bringing cutlery to mouth with trained ease._

We have all wondered if at home they course about like that, making that noise and slobbering through plates of chicken with their hands.  It's something a Slytherin knows better than to do long before coming to Hogwarts.  It wouldn't be allowed at a Slytherin family's table.

And yet we've all wondered what it would be like, to laugh with our families at dinner.  For them to give us gifts like those sweaters, not because they needed a favor, or because we had performed to their standards, but only because they wanted to.

Not that we're _jealous of those muggle-lovers.  No.  Merely curious._

After breakfast, we'll all walk by the Gryffindor table.  A few choice insults will be thrown back and forth, but most of us will simply walk by with a silent, superior gaze and ultimately we'll make it back to the Common Room where we'll all sit down in the same place and discuss the same things, within earshot of the young Slytherins.  

The sun will blaze off the sticky snow out in the courtyard, where our windows face, and the room will be bright despite the dull gray of the stone walls and marble floors.  The fire will still be roaring and there will still be a tree in the corner.

We know the War is coming.  We're going to sleep tonight knowing the War is coming, and we'll wake up tomorrow knowing the same.  Tomorrow Malfoy will tell us his father's news from Azkaban, and remind us of the Dark Lord's power.  Another seventh year will add that Dumbledore is powerful too.  Tomorrow we will wake up with a choice weighing on our minds.

And we'll wait.

Author's Note:  Unidentified POV, I don't know who it is but I picture it as a male.  The "Final Battle" has really been playing in my mind for a while, so maybe I'll find more stuff to do with that.  If you read this, drop me a note, tell me if you liked it, hated it, what was good, what was bad, I read and appreciate every review!

Disclaimer:  They're JK's.  The end, by the Jill.


End file.
